Bill Gates announces the opening of Microsoft's Middle East and Africa (MEA) Developer Support Centre at MDC

Its main objective is to provide the region with high quality support on Microsoft's development platforms and developer tools, in multiple languages.

"Microsoft's MEA Developer Support Centre will give the developer community in Middle East and Africa valuable technical knowledge and easy access to support," said Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect. "I am very excited about the potential of developers in the region, and I hope this centre will help them do amazing things."

The MS MEA DSC will offer technical support for developers using the Microsoft Platform - which includes Microsoft's state-of-the-art development tool: Visual Studio.NET as well as developer support for its entire server platform range. Developers will be able to contact the MEA DSC online, or through local access numbers in 13 different countries in the region. Microsoft's MEA DSC is staffed with highly qualified professional with deep understanding of Microsoft's platforms and development tools. They will assist developers in the MEA region in their efforts to build reliable, secure and scalable applications that can be easily deployed and run.

They will provide quality support, in multiple ways: by providing phone and online technical support, moderating and responding to question in Microsoft's technical newsgroups, and organizing interactive technical chat sessions.

Moreover, on the occasion of the MEA DSC launch we will offer 3 months of free, unlimited support via the Web on Microsoft's developer tools and platforms. Developers throughout the region will be offered the possibility to contact our support specialist online, with the technical support questions they might have; a first answer will be given via email within 48 hours. This service, which will be available from February 1st through April 30th, 2004, will allow all developers to benefit from a direct contact with our teams.

The MEA DSC will also play a key role in sharing technical knowledge with the developer community, by publishing dedicated content in multiple languages including code snippets, case studies, design and architecture practices, a dynamic knowledge base as well as expert's answers to developers' frequently-asked-questions (FAQ's). Finally, it will also be an entry point to receive input and ideas from the developer community, and build a real dialogue with the most competent and active participants.

While the phone support offerings will be reserved to Microsoft's support subscribers and to Microsoft's partners, the online services will be freely accessible to all developers in the region, coherently with the objective of offering quality, affordable support to the broad developer community.

The goals behind the establishment of the MEA DSC are manifold: the first is to provide application developers in the region with the best technical support resources that can be accessed locally; the second is to provide this support in the local language; the third is to cater to the needs of a wide community of developers: the individual professional developer, the corporate developer, academic community developer and the consultant developer as well.

"We believe that such a focus will help greatly speed-up the software development cycle in the MEA region resulting in the rapid development of the ICT industry in the region," said Nasser Ghazi, .NET & Platforms Director, Microsoft Middle East and Africa.